INSIGHT
GAME-CHANGERS:
CAN NEW VARIANTS
‘BRING THE LOVE’
BACK TO POKER?
Operators have reported some success with variations on the traditional game of poker, but not everyone
is convinced this is the way to bring back recreational players. By Joanne Christie
WHEN 888 ANNOUNCED its half-year
results earlier this month, at first glance
it may not have seemed there was much
of significance to report for the long-
beleaguered poker vertical. With revenue
up just 1%, it was the worst performer for
the company after bingo, which fell 3%.
But dig a bit deeper and it seems there
may be good reason for the optimism
on display from company CEO Itai
Frieberger when it came to poker during
the investor presentation.
For a start, growth of only 1% is not
so bad when one considers that during
the period 888 had to pull poker from
several markets, taking big hits after
withdrawing from Australia and
Czech Republic, in particular.
There was also a pretty impressive
26% jump in average active days for poker,
far ahead of the 16% growth in casino.
During the results presentation
Frieberger said the company’s poker revival
was being led by new game variants that
were attracting more recreational players,
such as Flopomania, Blast and Snap.
Flopomania is a game where there is no
pre-flop, Snap is a cash game where once
a player folds they move immediately to a
“Poker is a timeless game for a reason though and the
skill-based element will always draw a huge crowd,
particularly nowadays at a time when esports is
really taking off”
David Pomroy, Unibet
new game and Blast is a small tournament
where players can win a jackpot rather than
just a normal tournament prize.
Itai Pazner, head of the B2C division at
888, says the move to new poker variants
is part of the company’s strategy to tip the
scales back in favour of recreational rather
than professional poker players.
“The online poker industry incentivised
the more professional players and slowly
and surely became less relevant for
recreational players and basically became
much less fun. The chance of a new player
going onto a poker platform and winning
money became much slimmer.
“A lot of people who loved online
poker just deserted it and we want to
bring them back and bring in new players
who are just coming into poker, but in
order to do that there is a lot of wo rk you
have to do both on the network itself and
on products, so these variants are part of
our strategy to bring the love back to
online poker.”
His colleague Hili Shakked, vice-
president of poker at 888, adds. “Another
factor that we realised when we spoke to
players was that the game was boring and
slow. It took a lot of time for other players
to make decisions because they play 10 or
15 tables concurrently.
Once we introduced the quick games
people loved it because they want to
play, they want the action, they don’t
want to wait all the time for their
next decision.”
Industry-wide shift
888 is not alone in its move towards more
hybrid poker/casino/lottery products.
PokerStars has of course been doing similar
variations on traditional poker for some
iGB Affiliate Issue 65 OCT/NOV 2017
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